Theft

Today, I was with a writing group trying to plan out a chapter.  We got to talking and I wanted to get their opinion on my latest short story, Cheat.  When the girl next to me read it, she told me that she had actually read that piece a couple days before on a website I've never heard of.

The poster may or may not have said that s/he did not write it.  But the site is not very searchable, so we were having trouble finding the piece, particularly since the site is NSFW and we were in the middle of a Barnes & Noble.  She doesn't think that they credited me with it.

Apparently, the piece did well and a lot of people "liked" it; so many, in fact, that it was featured on the site.

Now, here's where things make me angry.  I don't mind that people like the piece of a NSFW site.  That's fine.  I am glad people enjoyed it!  I am even glad the person didn't take credit for it.  But I didn't get credit for it, and I didn't give permission, and I wasn't asked.

I cannot tell you how infuriating this is.  Here I am, trying to build an audience, and a golden opportunity like that slips away under my fingertips.  It makes me realize 2 things:

1) My pieces WILL get stolen

2) I could probably get a bigger audience if I specialize more.

So now I get to figure out what my next move will be.  I could stop putting up short stories altogether, but I'm not sure how much that will help me.  I suppose I could instead simply collect them for publication.  But if I do that, I need to do something for exposure, to gain an audience.  I could find a niche and go with it.  If so, what niche?  Any ideas?

Cheat

Today's short story has some adult themes.  You have been warned.

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The soft touch of her youthfulness, the heat of passion and flesh, the tangling of limbs and lives, the anger and betrayal – these things overwhelmed all feelings of guilt.  I don't even know the woman's last name, but in all fairness, I wouldn't want to.  After all, I never knew the name of my wife's lover.

For that matter, I never knew my wife.

A lot comes with 10 years of marriage.  It seems every day we learned more about what we liked or disliked.  Just when I thought I knew her, she'd throw me for a loop with another strange obsession.  Sure, things changed.  Sex became less frequent, less adventurous.  Infatuation faded into complacency.  Routine took over.  But I never expected to see that email on her computer.

"Last night was amazing.  I can't wait to see you again.  How about this weekend?"

It wasn't fair.  I had been loyal to her since we met, and now she was off gallivanting around!  Since when did I become… boring?

I made sure to let her go that weekend.  That's when I met Joanna.  I wished I'd gone to that adult dating site earlier.

My own tryst was cut short.  I had to make it home before my wife did, not that I would have cared if she caught me coming home late, disheveled and smelling of sex.  But there were chores I wanted to do before she got home.  After all, I didn't need her anymore.

She didn't come home that night.  By the next morning, elation turned to jealousy.  By the afternoon, anger.  The following morning, fear.

They found her body 2 weeks later, stuffed into a plastic trash bag. 

Dark

Keep my brothers in the dark, I do.  It is my job.  Yes it is.  We brownies do not like the light.  We fear the light.  The light hurts us.  It blinds us.  It exposes us.  Every night we come out.  Every night we fix.  We fix everything, we do.  The gates above rejected us, yes, yes.  They told us we were unfit.  Unfit!  The gates below did not want us.  No!  I remember!  We were too nice, they said.  We could not get along with the others, like soap and scum, oil and water.  We are caught between!

Some of our cousins, they play tricks.  They paid the gatekeeper to stay out.  And they pay him still, pay him always, every 84 moons.  Bah!  The moon is too bright.  We hate the moon.  We like it inside, in the dark.  Always in the dark.

I remember, I told my brothers, I said we should help.  Help the stewards.  Steward the stewards, that we do!  We clean their houses, mend their toys, if only for a bit of morsel.

It is becoming hard.  "Droko!"  They came to me.  "Droko, they humans, they tame fire now to keep the dark away!"  So I learn to snuff out flame.  I brave it, the light.  Droko knows how.  This works for many moons, many seasons.

"Droko!  They keep flames in glass pots!"  I try to break the pots, but they are too far.  They put their light pots on the ceiling!  Humans are tricky that way.  I braved the day, I watched the stewards.  Droko learn how to put out the lights.  They call it a "witch" but it does not look like a witch to me.  It is too small.  It stays on the wall.  I point it down, the lights go out.  My brothers get to work.

They learn, too.  Yes, much to learn.  Wood toys?  They are gone!  Now it is all e-lek-tonics.  Bah!  Make light, their toys do.  Make sound!  We hate it.  But we fix it! We do good!  We cut wires, turn off the light toys.  Then we fix.

It does not work for long.  It was a moon ago. A human, he has toys with magic eyes.  I keep watch in the dark, but the eyes, they watch me.  In the horrible day, the human went to his toy.  His magic eye, it saw me!  It showed him on his light toy.  I was there, in the dark, but in the light.

"Droko," I says.  "This can not be!  If the humans see us, they stop us.  We know this.  They always do.  If my brothers do not work, the gates below will take us!"  I said this, I did.  Stop the human, I did.  It was easy.  I breaked his toys!  I found him asleep.  I stopped his air.  Oh!  I will be with my fallen brothers!  But I did my job.  Yes.  I keep us in the dark.  That I do.

Gravity

"Warton?  As in Tom Warton?"

That was the question I had always been asked.  Whenever I told anyone my name it wasn't, "Didn't you write that book?" or, "I love your stories," or "I can't wait to see your next novel."  No, it was always, "Are you really related to that guy who makes cars?"

I didn't even drive a Warton.  I thought they were ugly machines that didn't have enough power and wasted too much fuel.  I stared down at the first one my dad ever built, supposedly in his own garage.  I doubted that.  Frankly, I thought it looked much better after I had doused it in gasoline.

This was only one of a dozen cars that sat in the small museum attached to the factory.  I'd practically grown up at the factory.  I spent so much time there, I knew all the guards, I knew the security system inside and out, and I knew that on the night of the World Cup finals, all the night staff would be glued to a small TV in the guardroom.  It wasn't hard to get around them.  Nothing could make them leave the game.  It was the same when dad owned the place.  The day of the World Cup finals always had a sort of party atmosphere, and dad allowed it.  But even now, after his death, the Board of Directors refused to change anything.  They were superstitious, afraid that changing anything would incur the wrath of my dead old man.

I quickly spent the entire canister of gasoline in the museum and slipped out of the door to the main floor of the factory.  I knew where the gas pumps were, so it didn't take me long to refill the container and start distributing the liquid to the machines, the files cabinets, the offices.  When I got to the boardroom, I knew my work was nearly over.  The company would never recover, but my name would.

"Hands in the air!"  It was Jorge, the youngest guard and, truth be told, an old friend of mine.  We were the same age, spent time in the factory together, went to school together.  His voice rang from the only door to the entire room.  I put my hands up, a match between my fingers.

"Go back to the game, Jorge," I said as I turned around.  He flinched when he saw it was me.

"Ashton?  What are you doing here?"

"I'm putting an end to this blight on the family name.  On my name."

"What blight?  Your name is on the map because of this place."  His hand was on his gun's holster.

"Do you even know what I've been doing for the past 5 years?  Did you know I have two books out?  And they both have great reviews!"

"Why does that mean you have to burn down your father's factory?"

"Because I have no sales!  No one knows my name!  They only know my dad's name!  I'm trapped in his gravity!"  I could see that Jorge didn't understand.  "If I can't break free from my father's star, I'll never shine on my own."

"Destroying your father's namesake is not the way to do it.  Come on, Ash.  If you just come with me now, we can watch the game together and I won't let anyone know it was you in here."

I looked around the boardroom, seeing the name "Warton" splayed out on every seat, on every window, even on the carpet.  But I knew that it wasn't my name.  Not any longer.  I smiled and lit the match.  He put his gun in front of him.

"Put the match down, Ashton!" he said, though as he spoke I could see him shaking.

"Are you sure you want me to do that, Jorge?"  I flicked the match at him.  It landed on the table and smoldered… then went out in a pool of gasoline.  "What the Hell?"

Jorge ran up to me and knocked me over with his shoulder.  He was bigger than me and definitely stronger.

The next morning I woke up in a cell with three other guys.  They all eyed me suspiciously.

"Good morning, Tinkerbell," a rather wiry man said.  All three of them laughed.

"Where… what happened?"  By the time I got my bearings, things came back to me.  The struggle, the cops, the beating.  My head still pounded.

"Woah, hold up there, Tinkerbell.  Looks like you took quite a pounding."  Another chuckle from his comrades.

"Stop calling me Tinkerbell," I demanded, getting an "ooooh!" from my cellmates.  "I'm Ash Warton."

"Warton?" One of the others asked.  "Like the car?"

An open letter to Dr. Brian May, CBE

Just about anyone who knows me also knows that I am a huge Queen fan.  As an American, this is a bit of an oddity.  Ask most Americans and they will tell you the Freddie Mercury was the lead singer, he died of AIDS, and that they wrote "Bohemian Rhapsody."  A few more will also recognize that they wrote "We Will Rock You," "We Are The Champions," "I Want It All," "Somebody to Love," and, if you're lucky, "Another One Bites the Dust."  They'll know plenty of other songs, they just have no idea Queen wrote them.  On the other hand, I listen to their solo albums.  When I went to see them in Chicago a few weeks ago, I was hoping to hear "No One But You (Only the Good die Young)" and "C-lebrity."

Of course, as we were walking outside the concert hall hours before the concert, I walked past a man taking a smoke (who then ducked inside), a man that looked suspiciously like Roger Taylor (drummer/songwriter/vocalist).  I have learned that Brian May (guitarist/songwriter/vocalist) banned smoking from the venues, and that Roger Taylor smokes.  The more I think back on it, the more I realize that I *walked past Roger Taylor* and I did not even say, "Hi!"  Great first impression.

But I'm not here to try to prove my fandom or one-up another Queen fan.  Frankly, I think everyone should listen to more Queen - particularly those of my generation and younger.  I know there are bigger fans than me, and frankly I would love to have some long conversations with them so I can learn more myself.

This all being said, I have longed to write a letter to Brian May.  Every member of Queen was important.  Every member wrote at least one chart-topping song.  Every one had a degree.  But for me, Brian May has become an inspiration.

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Dr. Brian May, CBE,

Thank you.  Thank you for the truly divine music.  Thank you for building the Red Special at the age of 17.  Thank you for being an inspiration.  But most of all, thank you for being a role model that is worthy of aspiring to.

One of the reasons I picked up the guitar was so that I could play like you.  The second song I ever learned to play was "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."  My brother wanted me to play it for his wedding along with some other friends.  I learned every part so that I could teach it to them, but, sadly, I was the only one that could play the parts or practiced it.  More recently, I have been teaching myself "Last Horizon."  Sadly, I do not have the time to dedicate to the craft that is necessary to reach a professional level, at least not anytime soon.  But I am still inspired by what you have achieved and use your example to fuel my own passions.

However, what has impressed itself upon me the most is your personal life.  After battling depression, you have gone on to earn your doctorate, record two solo albums and a soundtrack, reform Queen, record a new Queen album, become an activist, play for a variety of artists, and be appointed a CBE (Commander of the most Excellent Order of the British Empire).  You have had mistakes in your past, but you conquered them and have continued to strive to make the best of yourself.  This is what I truly aspire to do.  To be the best person I can be.

I am currently a stay-at-home dad and writer in his 30s with arthritic knees and an expertise in practically nothing.  But I may have 40, 50, 60 years ahead of me.  Arthritis be damned!  I must strive to be the best dad and writer that I can be!  I must be the best husband I can be!  And I must be the best person that I can be, even if I make mistakes from time to time.

So thank you, Doctor.  Thank you for being someone worthy of being looked up to in a time when decent role models are so few and far between.  I hope that my own children can look up to your example as well, or that I can be become such an example to them.

Signed,

Spencer Hixon

Genetic Ownership

"James was more than a good husband and good father, he was a good man…"  Jacqueline said as she stood in front of the small crowd all dressed in black.  Her smile was serene and empty, as was the smile on everyone's faces.  Everyone's, that is, except for the young woman's in the front row.  The black veil she had one could not hide the pain, the fear, the fits of sobbing that made everyone nervous.

"Sara, shhh!  You can't let them hear you!" said the boy next to her in a hoarse whisper.

"I know…" she whispered back.  "I… can't help it!"  She shrank back and leaned into the boy.

At the pulpit, Jacqueline continued.  "I was so proud of my husband when he spearheaded the Epigenetic Futures initiative, which has changed our world, our way of life."  She looked down at her children with that same serene smile, despite the fact that her daughter continued to sob.

In the back of the church, one of the large doors opened just enough for two men to walk in.  They wore black suits with black ties, but their suits sported an emblem on the arm.  "EFC" was emblazoned across it.  The men remained in the back of the church.  The entire the congregation looked back at them, and there was even a pause in the eulogy, but the interruption was brief.

"Sara, you need to be quiet!"  her brother reiterated.  "They're here!"

Sara clung to her brother's arm tightly.  "I can't…"

"Every hardship in life leads to changes in our epigenetic code, which affects future generations.  With that in mind, we decided to eliminate pain, famine, disease, and even sorrow from our genes.  We wanted to create a happier, healthier society.  We did it for our children."  Jacqueline noticed the men stand up and walk down the aisle towards the sobbing Sara.  She cleared her throat and looked down at Sara.  "So we must be strong, be happy.  We must celebrate James' life and move on."

The men walked right up to the front row.  One of them put his hand on Sara's shoulder, making the girl jump in her seat and let out another sob.

"Wh-what do you want with my sister?" her brother asked.

"This young woman is damaging the future genetic code.  Please let go of her so we can take her in."

He held on tighter to her.

"What is going on?" Jacqueline asked and came down from the pulpit.  "Who are you?  What are you doing with my kids?"

The men turned their attention to the woman.  "EFC, ma'am.  We're here to protect our property."

Although she knew very well what the men meant, she still needed to confirm.  "What do you mean 'your property?'"

"The genetic code, ma'am.  Now please stay out of our way."  The man who was not speaking pulled the boy away from his sister.  Someone in the audience stood up, but he didn't dare move.  Everyone understand what would happen if they interfered.

Despite knowing, Jacqueline moved down from the pulpit.  "No, you can't take Sara!  She just lost her father!  She's only a kid!"  She rushed to defend her daughter, but one of the men got in her way.

"Ma'am, please calm down." he said, but soon the boy was tugging at him as well.  Without a word, he pushed Jacqueline to the ground and picked the struggling boy up.

"Michael!" Jacqueline cried.  In moments, both of her children were being taken away.  But when the men made it to the door, they were greeted by an usher who stepped in their way.  Several other members of the congregation stood up and approached them.

The men found themselves backing away, only to be surrounded by the entire congregation.  The usher, a man who looked like he might be more at home on a motorcycle than in a church, folded his arms over his chest.  "Put the kiddies down."

The agents did as they were told.  One of them put his hand into his jacket, as if to pull for a weapon, but the other stopped him.  "We will be keeping an eye on all of you."  He turned to his partner.  "Come on, let's not make this into a public relations fiasco."  With that, they walked past the usher and left the church.

Jacqueline got off the floor, her face streaming with black tears as the children ran into her arms.  After a moment, she stood up, wiped some of the mascara off her face, and faced the crowd.

"I think it's time we took back our future.  For our children."

Linda

"Your turn with the kid, huh?" I asked the young man as he sat on the park bench.  I couldn't really help myself; he looked about my age, didn’t have on a ring, and had the kind of face that would make George Clooney jealous.  Plus, the smile on his face as he watched the kids run around the playground- it was contagious.

"What?  Oh, no.  Every day is my turn.  I'm a stay-at-home parent."  It was one of those questions you realize you never should have asked, but only after the fact.  I'd never felt so embarrassed.  I just wanted to crawl into a shell and hide, but he didn't look offended.  In fact, his smile had turned towards me.

"Oh, oh I'm sorry!  I didn't mean…" I stammered and let my bangs hide my face.  "It's just, I've never seen you at the playground before.  I'm Linda."

He turned his gaze back to the kids, but scooted over on the bench and patted the seat next to him.  "Well, I'm new to the area.  I'm Andre.  I've just been looking for some good places to take my daughter."

The first thing I noticed sitting next to him was how good he smelled.  I could have been imagining it, of course, but something about him just drew me in.  I looked back to my own daughter and waved with a bright smile, then watched as her golden locks bounced with each joyful but awkward toddler step she took.  "So what does your wife do?" I asked.

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.  "Well, my ex-wife doesn't do much.  She's not really in the picture.  I'm just lucky that I can work at home at night."  His gaze turned back to look over at me, even check me out.  The way his eyes lingered made me feel so sexy, so wanted.  It was strange feeling like that here with my kid, but I suppose the Fates never did care about such silly things as circumstances.  "What about you?  What does your husband do?"

"Oh, no, there's no husband.  John died a few years ago."  The moment I said those words, I felt I was opening too much to this stranger.  He was just so easy to talk to that everything I'd been bottling up wanted to flood out.  I had to bite my tongue to keep the tide at bay.

"I'm sorry to hear that."  There was a moment of silence between us,  a moment I wanted to fill, but I let the laughter of children do that for me.  "So how old is yours?"

"Oh, she's about 4."

"Really?  Mine's about that age, too!  Maybe we should arrange a play date some time."

My heart jumped in my chest.  "Um, sure!  I'd like that.  Which one is yours?"

"She's the blond one on the slide there."  He pointed to a kid.  My kid.

"Wh-which one?  Climbing up the back?"

"No, she's just down it now.  She has on the green shirt."  Again, he was pointing to my child, my precious Sara.

"A-are you sure?"

"Oh yes, that's Mary all aright.  Where's yours?" he asked.

"What is this?  Are you trying to take my Sara?"  I was mortified and sprang to my feet to get some distance on him.

"I don't know what you're talking about."  He tried to play the fool, the innocent one, but all the pieces were fitting together.

I put myself between him and the kids.  "Single dad, new to the area, hanging out around playgrounds?  Who are you really?  Stay away from our kids!"  I raised my voice, creating a scene that made all the other mothers raise their faces from their phones and look our way.

"Hey, I don't know what you're getting at.  I came here with my daughter.  I'm not after anyone's kids."  He glanced around nervously, obviously feeling the eyes of all the other mothers bearing down on him.

"If you don't leave now, I'm going to call the cops!"  At this point, even the kids had stopped playing.  I backed up, moving towards Sara.  I couldn't believe I had been attracted to such a predator.

"Mary!  Come here.  I think it's time we leave."  He stood up and started towards the playground, but I made sure to stay in his way.

"Don't you dare!" I called out.

"Andre?  What's wrong?" one of the other mothers asked and stepped towards him.  I didn't recognize her either.

"This woman thinks I'm stalking our kids," he said.

"That's ridiculous."  She turned to me, her heavily made-up face contorting in accusation.  "Who do you think you are?  I invited Andre here because his kid hasn't had a chance to make any friends yet."

I looked around at the other parents.  "I don't believe you.  Did anyone else here see this man come with a girl?"  My heart froze when several mothers stepped forward to join him.

He squatted.  "Mary, come here."  In moments Sara ran to him and threw her arms around his neck so he could lift her.  "See, Linda?  This is not your daughter."

I stepped back and stumbled on part of the playground, falling to my rear on the rubber surface.  "S-Sara?"

Sara looked at me like she didn't know me.  It was the same look she had on her face when John died.  It was a look that had been burned into my heart.  After the flash of lights, the crunch of metal and bone, the screaming, the impact, after the world fell on its head, that was the last look I had seen in her face before I lost consciousness.  Before I lost everything.

"Ma'am?"  It was a woman's voice that roused me.  She knelt next to me in the playground.  "Are you OK?  You were screaming."

I stared at her and then Andre in disbelief.

"Sara… is gone, isn't she?" she asked.

All I could do was throw myself into her arms, sobbing.

I'm back!

An unplanned hiatus?!  What is wrong with me?!

Well, it is what it is.  I needed a little break from the blog.  I've been working on my novel, and let me tell you, I am getting such glowing critiques it makes me blush!  We'll see how long those last, though.  This next chapter I'm revising is a tough one and needs a substantial rewrite.

But I did manage to finish a short story.  I'm rather proud of this one!  However, I'm still working on it, and this time I want to look into having some revisions.  So, I'm making a general call out.  Anyone interested in proof-reading a short story?  If so, contact me on facebook.

I don't know if my stories are really any good.  I mean, I get good reviews generally, when I get them, but I rarely win any contests (or even get close, it seems).  It makes me not want to submit to anymore contests, even though I know that I can only win them by joining them.  That being said, I think I am going to try to participate in a few again... free ones this time.

Break

Sorry, folks.  I'm on vacation this week!  As much as I would love to regale you with another tale, I've run out of buffer and need to build it back up.  So, I leave you all with a science lesson!  sure, it might be long, and old, but it remains awesome!

Hollow Point

This is the second part of the story started here: Captain Blaze.  It is meant to show how the Point of View changes everything.

Emily Henson was a good woman.  I could always trust her to keep me informed when something big was going down, and from the way she sounded over the phone, I had a feeling this was big.

"Hollow, is that you?" she asked as he shone a flashlight around the parking deck.  I could see how much she was shaking.

"You're sure you weren't followed, Em?" I asked as I stepped into the light.

She let out a sigh of relief.  "Yeah, I'm pretty sure.  Listen, I can't stay long.  Something big is going down."  She stepped closer to me, turning the flashlight off and plunging us both into the dim light that came form the street.  "It's this contract we've been working on.  It's supposed to be a hydrocarbon detector, you know, for oil.  But it doesn't add up,  The military is interested.  I know they might be able to use some but... the other day I was digging around and found out what's in them.  Hollow, it's weapons-grade plutonium.  And a lot of it – far more than we'd need to detect hydrocarbons."

I looked around.  The sunglasses I wore to cover my face weren't normal sunglasses.  They offered me a view of the world unhindered by shadows.  Thankfully, I didn't see anyone hiding in the dark.  "You think they're going to make them into weapons?"

"No," she said, shaking her head.  "I found out today that the military is shipping these overseas.  But they're not going to where the oil is; they're going to Korea.  Hollow Point, I think General Hauser is planning to sell these under the table.  Selling plutonium is regulated, but these detectors aren't.  I think they're trying to make a profit off of a weapon.  They might even want to start a war with this stuff.  They're shipping it tomorrow at the docks, 115.  I… I didn't know who else to turn to."

"Don't worry.  You came to the right man.  I'll take care of it."

It wasn't hard taking out the guards.  I'm sure they were expecting an attack, but they certainly weren't expecting me.  Finding the cargo container wasn't hard, either.  General Hauser was never good at subtlety.  I'd donned my newest suit, an exoskeleton filled with nifty gadgets, and it was a good thing, too.  As soon as I'd finished cutting a hole into the side of the container, a light shone on me and I heard a familiar, self-righteous voice.

"Hands up!  Step away from the cargo."

I rolled my eyes.  "Captain Blaze…" I said between my teeth.  The last thing I needed was for hot-head to get in my way.

"Hollow Point.  You're in over your head this time.  Come quietly, and maybe the DA will go easy on you."

"Blaze, back off.  You don't know what you're doing, and I don't have time to explain.  I need to take this back to where it belongs," I said as I rushed into the container.  All I saw was a box on a pedestal, but my suit was giving me readouts that I'd never seen before.  This had to be it.

There was a deafening impact and soon part of the roof was being torn away.  Blaze's fingers reached through the holes and I felt the container start to lift.

"Are you crazy, Blaze!?" I called out and grabbed the box.  It heaved as my suit adjusted to its incredible weight.  The pedestal shifted and began to beep.  A countdown.  A short countdown.

I'd never run so fast in my life.  It didn’t hurt that my suit was built for speed.  My body practically flew out of the container, ripping my trench coat right off.  "Get out of there, Blaze.  This isn't about who wins!" I called out, but I never slowed down.

There was nothing that could catch me, at least that's what I thought.  But after I passed by a corner, something went wrong.  A blockade of cars.  Then another.  I felt like I was being herded, forced to move down narrower and narrower roads to keep from collided with things.  When I'd finally found the room to slow down, my suit failed.

"An EM Pulse?" I asked no one in particular as the box fell to the ground.  I collapsed under the weight of my exoskeleton.  A small crowd had gathered around the intersection I was lying in, but none of the onlookers dared to get close to me.  Then he arrived.

"Darn it, Blaze!  Let me go!  These things aren't what you think.  They're dangerous and I can't let them fall into the wrong hands!"

"Save it Hollow," Captain said with that all-too-familiar look of smug justice on his face.  I  watched helplessly as he picked the box up.  He was talking, but I was too busy getting out of my exoskeleton to listen.

"What's this?" he asked.  I looked up and saw the lid had been removed and Blaze was reaching into it.

"No!  Get out of there!  It's too…nngg.. dangerous!"  I managed to wiggle myself free and ran up to him.  I grabbed the lid, which lay on the ground nearby, and rammed my body against his, pushing him away from the box.  The lid slid into place, but it was too late.

Captain Blaze was holding a small sphere.  This was no hydrocarbon detector.  My goggles flashed into life and the exoskeleton behind me twitched.  The only thing I could see through the goggles was a radioactivity warning the like of which I'd never seen before.  This wasn't even plutonium.  It was much worse.  The words "FATAL DOSE" appeared before my eyes, then the goggles died again.

"Does that look like an instrument for detecting oil to you, Blaze?"  He shook his head.

"I've never seen one, but I don't think this… it burns."

The ball fell to the ground with a thud.  "It's bad, Blaze. Whatever this is, I think it's already killed us."

Blaze looked at me in horror.  Suddenly the power turned back on in my suit.  It thrashed about for just a moment.  I walked over to it and started put it back on, wiggling my body into it.

"What are you doing?" Blaze asked.

"I'm going to put this thing back in the box and bury the box where it can't hurt anyone."

He stood up and winced as he picked the ball up and put it back in the box.  I could see that it had left his hands burnt.  "I'll do it," he said.  Then he flew off.  I couldn't have stopped him, the idiot.  If he was taking it to the military, I wouldn't be able to catch up to him.  But instead, I watched as he streaked brightly across the sky and splashed into the ocean.  He never came up.

Now I'm stuck here in this hospice, dying slowly and painfully.  The doctors tell me there's nothing they can do.  They try to make me comfortable.  But I am captured by the thought that, even in his death, that man was denying me.  I would die in steps, as a villain.